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THE NINE BLESSINGS 


.V y 

MARY HARRIOTT yORRIS 


AUTHOR OF “DOROTHY DELAFIEUD,” “ PHERE,” AND “a DAMSEL OF 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY’’ 



NEW YORK : HUNT & EATON 
CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & CURTS 
1895 



?-Z.3 


Copyright by 
HUNT & EATON, 
1894 . 


Composition, electrotyping, 
printing, and binding by 
Hunt & Eaton, 

150 Fifth Ave., New York, 


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CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Prologue 5 

The Mission of Beata 9 

The Mission of Astrea 21 

The Mission of Heroicus 37 

The Mission of Sergius 51 

The Mission of Gratius 65 

The Mission of Justus 75 

The Mission of the Dominie 89 

The Mission of Ruth 105 


Conclusion 


122 


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PROLOGUE. 


OD communed with himself. The 



VJT infinite heart of love yearned over 
the poor immigrants from earth to heaven, 
for all who came crossed the ocean of 
loneliness, encountering on the voyage 
fierce storms of suffering. His chief 
solicitude was for the humble, for they 
had occupied the poorest cabins, although 
theirs was to be the inheritance of the 
kingdom of heaven. He had heard the 
sighs of the sorrowful on the journey and 
sent messages of welcome to them as 
they came into haven weather-beaten with 
V great tribulation. Not only for the 
mourners did he design some especial 
manifestation of his tenderness, but also 


6 


PROLOGUE. 


for the merciful, the peacemakers, and 
all those who longed for righteousness 
or had in any way suffered for the sake 
of righteousness ; for the reward of such 
is seldom on earth, but nevertheless all 
the greater in heaven. Only to one 
group did God dare give large bless- 
ings, both on earth and in heaven, and 
this class is so few in number that it is 
almost as if it did not exist. The meek 
alone shall inherit the earth. 

While God communed with himself a 
new thought throbbed through the uni- 
verse. None could understand it except 
the most loving of those ministering an- 
gels whose souls are ever turned toward 
the Father. 

They bowed themselves before God 
as they comprehended, saying, in voices 
like the sound of falling waters, “ Holy, 
holy, holy, Lord God Almighty ! ” for 
they had received into their inmost be- 


PROLOGUE. 


7 


ings the divine and blessed impulse of 
vicarious sacrifice. Each joyfully, pro- 
phetically, spiritually embraced on earth 
for a brief period the ministry of pain in 
order to learn more perfectly to minister 
unto the beatified in heaven. 

God’s thought placed these angels in 
earthly homes as babes, and, as the world 
knew not Jesus when he took on flesh, 
so it knew not these other heavenly 
guests. 

The Father graciously hid from them 
the memory of their royal condition, for 
“ the vision splendid ” would have taxed 
their humanity beyond endurance. 

This little book is a brief account of 
their mission. 


Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs 
is the kingdom of heaven. 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


THE MISSION OF BEATA. 

B e AT A was born on the first of 
October. All summer a young 
and ardent woman had busied herself in 
making exquisite garments with her own 
fingers to dress the baby who was to 
come on the wings of the autumn winds. 

She was a poor woman, and unless she 
had made Beata’s garments the little one 
would have had to go most simply clad. 
As she sewed, she planned in her thought 
for the baby soon to be hers. It would 
surely be a boy — strong of limb, dark- 
eyed, and full of spirit from its birth. 

Her husband was a man of genius, and 


10 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


SO the baoy, while vigorous, like herself, 
should be gifted like its father, and in 
addition resolute, ambitious, and success- 
ful in the things of this world. 

But when the little one came, and the 
mother looked her first upon it, she 
turned her face away, for it was a tiny, 
gasping little thing, so frail and weak 
that the nurse held it on a pillow. The 
mother soon loved the helpless, suffer- 
ing, wailing baby more than she had ever 
thought it possible to care for the strong, 
dark-eyed boy who had filled her fancy ; 
and in her gratitude that the child had 
lived, she named it Beata. 

But after a time her ambition reacted, 
and she determined that if Beata were 
to be always an invalid she should nev- 
ertheless become wise and famous. 

So the little girl was bathed and 
dressed and fed and taught as if she 
were one of the daughters of the rich. 


THE MISSION OF BEATA. II 

She grew very slowly from babyhood 
to childhood, from childhood to woman- 
hood, wonderfully fair in face, but with 
so fragile a hold on life, and with so 
many ever-increasing memories of pain 
and weakness and wasted effort and a 
strange bluntness of faculties when she 
tried to use them, that there was a pa- 
thetic, wistful look in her blue eyes and 
a weary droop about her slender shoul- 
ders, as if she had never known a well 
day nor a minute of the buoyancy of 
youth. 

When she was twenty, and it was 
plain to be seen that life for her, because 
of her extreme frailty, must ever be a 
negation, her father, gifted beyond 
his generation, but unsuccessful in 
life, as such men always are, began to 
sigh in her presence and wish God had 
given him a great, hearty son full of 

commonplace ideas and commonplace 
2 


12 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


desires. Thus at least the fortunes of 
the family might have been mended. 

The girls mother, cruelly disappointed 
that this one weak child, too delicate to 
enter society, too broken with pain to 
study, too feeble, in short, to do much 
else than live as an anemone lives, bent 
and beaten by every wind, its petals 
shriveling even in the warm sun, and 
with a look about it in its best beauty of 
a short tenure of life — Beata’s disap- 
pointed mother, I say, gradually became 
indifferent to her daughter. 

The girl sat by her window at night 
looking up into the solemn blue sky re- 
ceding farther and farther the longer she 
gazed, and she would say, “ Unless I 
had faith in God I should give up even 
trying to live.” And then, while the 
tears rolled down her face, she would fall 
on her knees and softly whisper, “ O, my 
dear, dear Lord, why was I born ? ” 


THE MISSION OF BEATA. 1 3 

The years passed on. Her delicate 
beauty, the one gift of her youth, 
faded. Her blue eyes assumed the 
leaden hue of sickness. Her fair skin 
became thick and pallid. Her sunny 
hair lost its brightness. People ceased 
to exclaim, “ How pretty Beata is ! ” 

She read and studied from habit, but 
her brain, unnourished by rich blood, re- 
fused to store and combine the memories 
she otherwise would have possessed. 
Ghosts of great thoughts and fancies 
flitted in splendor across her dull facul- 
ties, and afforded her visions of what 
might have been had she only been 
strong. 

Her agony of futile effort and dis- 
cernment of her disabilities became so 
great that in making more prolonged 
exertion than usual in overcoming her 
weakness and stupidity she ruptured 
a blood vessel. From that time the 


14 THE NINE BLESSINGS. 

books and the sewing, the short walks 
and the little visits, ceased. Her life 
thereafter alternated between long 
nights of pain and days of languor and 
idleness. 

Morning, noon, and night she now 
prayed to die. 

The only notice her father took of 
her was to say mornings kindly but dep- 
recatingly, “ About as usual, I sup- 
pose, Beata 7 ” and her mother, after 
attending to her daily needs, would sigh 
and exclaim, “ I shall soon be old, and 
then who will there be to take care 
of me ” 

Beata spent whole nights in prayer, 
beseeching God to reveal to her the 
meaning of pain, of helplessness, of be- 
numbed faculties, and, worst and hardest 
of all, of being neither needed nor be- 
loved. 

When morning came she had received 


THE MISSION OF BEATA. 1$ 

no Other answer than the peace of a holy 
submission of spirit. 

No one came to see her any more ; no 
one inquired if she were better or worse, 
for she had always been ill ; no one 
asked her to do anything, for she had 
been so long helpless. 

It was the afternoon of a warm July 
day. 

Her father had gone to the nearest 
city. Her mother was at a neighbors 
talking over the great disappointment of 
her life in having a child so helpless and 
useless. The maid of all work was away 
on a holiday. Beata sat alone by the 
window, wishing there were something in 
her quiet country life on which she could 
lavish sympathy, and praying God to help 
her to be willing to be idle, useless, and 
misunderstood. 

As she prayed a commotion in the 
road disturbed her. Looking out she 


l6 THE NINE BLESSINGS. 

saw a group of boys chasing a lame dog 
and beating him in the intervals when 
they overtook him. 

She tottered to the door, flinging it 
open as the hunted animal came oppo- 
site. It ran past her into the house and 
crouched behind her scared and panting. 

Shutting the boisterous boys out and 
locking the door, her eyes sparkling with 
joy that at least she had one little chance 
of ministering, she fed the dog and 
washed its wounds, receiving the sweet- 
ness of its grateful eyes with as large a 
gratitude as if she had saved a human 
life. 

When her parents came home and 
found the dog there, they drove it out, 
chiding her as if she were a child, in- 
stead of a woman, for harboring such 
a filthy creature and increasing their 
labor. 

Beata again asked God that night the 


THE MISSION OF BEATA. 1 7 

meaning of her life. She looked at the 
moon sailing like a ball of light above 
the chasing clouds of white. She looked 
at the stars still shining in their appointed 
places. She listened to the wind rustling 
the new leaves. She inhaled the subtle, 
breathing fragrance of flowers and grass 
and shrubs; and suddenly, as if all the 
curtains shrouding her brain in darkness 
had been rent, she saw God in his 
beauty. 

She fell into an ecstasy of adoration 
and amazement because of his wonderful 
works. She cried aloud, “ O my beloved, 
my Lord, my God, do thou love me and 
let me love thee. Thou hast made me 
helpless. Here I am useless. In thy 
own good time let me do some little 
work for thee, for very love of thee, in the 
hereafter.” 

The solemn, beautiful night waxed and 
waned. The morning came and went. 


1 8 THE NINE BLESSINGS. 

“ Beata ! ” called her mother at noon. 

There was no answer. 

Her mother toiled slowly up the stairs 
and opened her door. 

The sunlight faintly touched with gold 
Beata’s hair, once so sunny. A smile as 
of one hearing and deeply understanding 
something ineffably sweet hovered about 
her half-parted lips. Her blue eyes were 
closed, but on her forehead was a radi- 
ance as if some one holy had passed by. 

Her mother uttered a cry and knelt 
beside her neglected child. Her father 
came to look upon her, dead, and moaned 
to think he had so often found fault with 
her. 

The neighbors flocked in to ask how 
it all happened. 

Toward night a lame dog came fur- 
tively and wistfully toward the house. 
He was taken in and fed. A collar with 
a silver plate was fastened around his neck. 


THE MISSION OF BEATA. 


19 


After Beata was gone, girls talked to- 
gether of her patience ; mothers told of 
her perpetual pain. Her parents spent 
the rest of their lives in regretting their 
lost opportunity. 

Now and then some one would say, 
with a sigh, 

“ Poor, dear Beata! I wonder why she 
was born.” 


Blessed are they that mourn : for they 
shall be comforted. 


THE MISSION OF ASTREA. 


21 


THE MISSION OF ASTREA. 


W HOEVER looked at Astrea be- 
held her to love her. The very 
sight of her brought praises to the lips 
of the talkative and an expression of 
mingled wonder and delight to the grave 
countenances of the reticent. 

She was not merely beautiful, but from 
her very presence emanated an atmos- 
phere of peace and radiance and purity. 
She was brilliant in mind and lofty in 
character ; she was rich and charitable ; 
she liad many relatives and friends to 
cherish and love her. Here and there 
an envious one said, “ How easy it is for 
Astrea to be good, for she has everything 
a human being can desire.” Others said, 
“ How wonderful it is that Astrea keeps 


22 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


SO unselfish and lovable when she has 
everything to spoil her!” 

The years glided by, and while pov- 
erty, death, and all kinds of unexpected 
misfortunes beset her neighbors and com- 
panions on the right hand and the left, 
none of these things came near Astrea. 
“Her luck” became a proverb. Long 
after she had passed out of girlhood there 
was an innocence and happiness of ex- 
pression about her features making her 
appear far younger than she was. If she 
had not been so very beautiful, a student 
of human nature might have caviled 
over the remarkable serenity of her coun- 
tenance and the absence of those subtle 
indications of fixed or varying shades of 
thought and feeling which tell of somber 
memories that if laid aside can never be 
quite forgotten. 

When Astrea had reached middle age 
people stole glances at her, for in some 


THE MISSION OF ASTREA. 23 

dim poetic way she restored for a brief 
instant the vanished ideals of womanhood 
which had inspired their youth. Girls 
sat gazing dreamily at her and breathing 
forth a tender longing that as the years 
increased they might grow into some 
faint resemblance to Astrea. Tired and 
disillusioned and haggard women, catch- 
ing a sight of one who blended in her 
very presence the vision of everything to 
be desired on earth, took heart of fancy, 
thinking that under happier auspices they 
too might have been fair in mind or spirit 
if not in face. 

So long did she walk along the dusty, 
glaring highway of life unsoiled by its 
storms that once and again her venerable 
minister pointed a lesson from her exist- 
ence, saying, “ The ways of God with a 
few of his children are tender in the ex- 
treme, even to the limited vision of our 
poor humanity ; ” or, he would remark. 


24 the nine blessings. 

“ See how God has showered the blessings 
of health and beauty, riches, love, and 
holiness upon Astrea to indicate to the 
rest of us what heaven is.” 

And Astrea herself did not grow used 
to her mercies. Day and night she 
praised God, and love for him was the 
supreme impulse of her heart. 

Suddenly, like a tempest among the 
mountains, there came a change. 

When trouble first touched her the 
whole community felt dismayed. They 
looked one to the other as if an earth- 
quake had shaken the foundations of 
their homes. But, as Astrea had walked 
before them, powerful in her wealth, now, 
though stricken with poverty, she ap- 
peared uncomplaining and courageous. 

“ I have these hands and this mind 
left,” she replied, cheerfully, to her sym- 
pathizers ; “ and surely I am more for- 
tunate than many.” 


THE MISSION OF ASTREA. 25 

The crippled, the feeble, and the sick 
shook their heads mournfully, saying, 
“ That is true ; you are indeed rich 

It was soon evident that Astrea had 
to work with her hands instead of her 
mind, for years were increasing, and only 
the skilled, the youthful, and the experi- 
enced could obtain those more remuner- 
ative occupations she at first sought. 

This surprised and disheartened her 
for a little space, for all her life she had 
heard her talents and acquisitions so 
highly lauded that she innocently sup- 
posed she needed but to make her desires 
known to utilize them. Thus she learned 
as if in one lesson the meaning of pov- 
erty and the emptiness of praise. She 
only turned the oftener to God in secret, 
beseeching him to keep her brave and 
thankful in spirit, and praising him that 
her parents, her husband, and her chil- 
dren were still left to her. 


26 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


Her first trouble had overtaken her 
in a period of great business depression ; 
and thus it happened that while she at 
length found something to do in humble 
service at a rich neighbor’s house her 
husband wandered from street to street 
and firm to firm seeking employment in 
vain. 

It was a sight to remember to see As- 
trea returning home at nightfall to be 
the very soul of the little circle she was 
trying to maintain with the pittance she 
daily earned. 

But by and by her parents, fallen on 
evil days in their old age, sickened and 
died from the change encompassing their 
lives and from grief on beholding their 
daughter’s beauty fading like a brilliant 
autumn leaf and her strength declining 
under untimely burdens. 

Astrea composed their forms for the 
last long sleep while shedding tears of 


THE MISSION OF ASTREA. 2/ 

mingled loneliness and longing, though 
thanking God that he had taken her 
aged and helpless ones before the shad- 
ows along her pathway darkened. 

Hardly had the soil been laid upon 
the graves of her parents when an acci- 
dent cut short the life of her husband. 

Broken-hearted and broken in body 
for a time, she ceased communing with 
God. The blue starry vault of even- 
ing was an impenetrable canopy which 
prayers could not pierce. The world, 
once so friendly and generous, was mi- 
serly and cold. 

But soon she renewed her strength in 
secret, and when neighbors began to sym- 
pathize with her after seeing that she 
had fought a battle with trouble and 
was triumphant, she said softly through 
her tears : “ The Lord gave, and the Lord 
hath taken away ; blessed be the name 

of the Lord.” 

3 


28 THE NINE BLESSINGS. 

Infirmity began slowly but surely to 
assail her. Burning pains darted through 
her limbs. Her shoulders, once shapely 
and lovely as those of Clytie, became thin 
and drooping. Her sunny hair turned 
white as the patches of snow lingering in 
the hollows beside the brilliant green of 
spring. Her step grew slower, and her 
eyes took on a look of eager longing as 
if some angel had lost its way and were 
inquiring the road back to heaven. 

But Astrea s lips were sealed against 
complaint, and as her work grew more 
difficult for her failing strength, and her 
money less adequate to meet the in- 
creasing needs of her growing chil- 
dren, she leaned on God more heavily 
in spirit. 

Her nights now began to be the scenes 
of angelic ministrations. As soon as she 
laid her aching limbs to rest, though 
pain racked her body, her spirit soared 


THE MISSION OF ASTREA. 2g 

into a realm of ecstatic repose. She be- 
came as a little child, and received comfort 
of a kind which made her think of her 
own yearning motherhood. In some 
strange way what others by day called 
her evil lot was transmuted at night into 
ways of blessedness and peace. She 
sometimes fell asleep repeating : “ They 
shall mount up with wings as eagles; 
they shall run, and not be weary ; and 
they shall walk, and not faint.” 

A decade passed. 

Her son was in his last year at college, 
through the long course of which he had 
earned his tuition month by month. Her 
daughter had just completed the musical 
education to earn which mother and 
child had lived on two meals a day for 
years. It was a season of renewing hope 
and of added thanksgiving to Astrea and 
of eager anticipation to her children, who 
expected soon to surround their beloved 


30 THE NINE BLESSINGS. 

mother with comforts and to relieve her 
overburdened strength. 

Neighbors spoke one to another, say- 
ing, “ It is along lane which has no turn- 
ing. Astrea had the good things of life 
while she was young and strong, but 
trouble was her portion when rest and 
prosperity would have been sweetest. 
Perhaps now that her children are 
grown and educated her lot will be 
easier.” 

But although Astrea had met sorrow 
with sweetness, and had borne adversity 
bravely, there were some to feel secretly 
glad that hers was the common lot of all. 

When the summer was glowing into 
autumn, and the air was full of a new, cold 
sweetness that set the blood tingling in 
the veins, awakening vigor and rousing 
ambition in young and old, Astrea’s son 
fell ill with a fever. 

Mother and sister nursed him. 


THE MISSION OF ASTREA. 3 1 

At night Astrea returned weary from 
her day’s work to sit through the long 
watches beside her boy, snatching at in- 
tervals a little broken sleep. One day her 
tired hands moved so slowly that her em- 
ployer, kind-hearted enough, but needing 
the allotted task done in time, and well 
done, chided the weary woman, urging 
her to more perseverance and energy. 

The following night Astrea could not 
sleep at all. She sat with wide open, 
burning eyes beside her boy, her heart 
dead with a general despair for her chil- 
dren and herself. 

Toward morning a late moon looked 
in at the windows. The stillness which 
comes just before dawn reigned. She 
felt suddenly apprehensive and solemn, 
her boy lay so peaceful, so quiet. 

“ Was he better ? ” 

She bent over him in the moonlight. 

He was dead. 


32 THE NINE BLESSINGS. 

No sooner had she gone silently and 
patiently through the sad days which fol- 
lowed than her daughter was stricken by 
the same fever. 

Astrea now stopped her work, clinging 
to the one life left for her to love and 
cherish with the famishing energy of a 
mother who sees herself bereft of her lost 
treasure. 

Piece by piece she sold her furniture 
to obtain means for food and medicine. 

In vain ! 

The November winds chanted their 
dirges over another grave, and Astrea, 
poor, decrepit, and prematurely aged, re- 
turned alone to her barren home. 

All night she wandered through 
the empty rooms. Stripped of their 
furniture, they were not more deso- 
late than her poor, torn heart. She 
threw up her arms in her despair and 
moaned. She fell on her knees and 


THE MISSION OF ASTREA. 33 

prayed, “ My God, my God, why hast 
thou forsaken me ! ” 

The darkness of a stormy night settled 
around her. The blackness of settled 
foreboding reigned in her heart. Sud- 
denly, like a bell in a desert, like a calm 
after a tempest, there rang through her 
soul the message : “Yea, though I walk 
through the valley of the shadow of 
death, I will fear no evil : for Thou art 
with me.” 

“ Thou art with me,” moaned Astrea 
over and over ; “ thou art with me.” 

After a while she began to intone the 
words as a lullaby to her soul, “ Thou 
art with me ; thou art with me.” 

A great peace enswathed her being 
as she kept repeating, “ Thou art with 
me.” 

The day broke cold and tempestuous. 
The first snow began to fall. It fell all 
the morning and all the afternoon. 


34 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


Neighbors looked toward her house 
from time to time. They saw no smoke 
rising from her chimney. The shutters 
remained closed. What was everybody’s 
business was nobody’s business, and so 
during that day and the next night none 
saw Astrea and no one went to inquire 
concerning her. 

On the second day, as if animated by 
a common impulse, a little group of 
women met at the locked door of the 
cottage. After a while, receiving no re- 
sponse to their loud knocking, they found 
a window which they could force. They 
gathered softly together down stairs. 
They had not realized before the empti- 
ness and desolation of the place. They 
went through the little bare rooms to the 
foot of the stairs. All was still. They 
crept up stairs hushed and timid. 

Looking through the open door of 
a room destitute of carpet, bedding, fire, 


THE MISSION OF ASTREA. 35 

they saw Astrea sitting on the floor be- 
side a chair on which lay an open Bible. 
Her head was resting on her hand. A 
smile holy and peaceful transfigured the 
pallor and emaciation of her once beauti- 
ful face. Her gray hair had fallen and 
partially concealed her sunken forehead 
and wasted cheek. Her other hand 
lay on the Bible. Finally, one woman, 
braver than the others, went nearer, for 
each had realized at once that Astrea 
was dead. As she leaned over to draw 
the drooping head gently to her breast 
she saw that Astrea’s thin and stiffened 
finger rested on the words : “ Blessed are 
they that mourn : for they shall be com- 
forted.” 


Blessed are the meek : for they shall in- 
herit the earth. 


THE MISSION OF HEROICUS. 


37 


THE MISSION OF HEROICUS. 

H EROICUS was one of six broth- 
ers. They were men of great 
stature and strength, though differing 
much in ability. Heroicus was the 
eldest, and, as often happens in such a 
case, he was the family burden-bearer. 
His massive frame, his straight, proud 
mouth, his kindling eye, inspired at once 
respect and awe. He was cheerful and 
buoyant in temper, tender to women and 
children, and with noble ambitions for 
whatever was true, beautiful, and good. 
Opportunity of any kind seemed to en- 
large his point of view, for, as riches, 
culture, and honor increased, he grew 
humble in spirit. All these good things, 
moreover, accrued to his brothers chiefly 


38 THE NINE BLESSINGS. 

through him. They, on the other hand, 
became arrogant with prosperity, exclu- 
sive in proportion to the honor paid 
them, and finical in their fastidiousness 
over books, music, travel, and society. 

The career of the brothers was, 
however, for many years one of un- 
clouded prosperity, for, whatever their 
faults, they had one virtue in family life. 
They stood shoulder to shoulder ; only 
the basal support of all was Heroicus. 
He was the originator of those great 
business designs which heaped up their 
vast wealth. His was the untiring ambi- 
tion which spurred the youngest, who 
was brilliant in mind but sluggish in 
temperament, which dominated the rash- 
ness and fickleness of another brother, 
which prevented a third from acting un- 
der the promptings of a jealous and sus- 
picious nature, which persuaded a fourth, 
who was cold, but just, to be generous to 


THE MISSION OF HEROICUS. 39 

the extent of self-sacrifice, and which re- 
strained the fifth from a reckless and 
boastful display. 

Thus it came to pass that a general 
good will prevailed toward this family of 
brothers, and that their immense business 
interests, their families, and they were 
admired, respected, and trusted. 

There came a time, however, when, 
notwithstanding his oversight of his 
brothers, Heroicus had to apply himself 
more assiduously than ever, for the others 
became too ardent lovers of leisure and 
society. With the habit and duty of an 
elder brother ever in his mind, he tried 
to fill the gaps made by their absence. 
He also felt pride in his strength to meet 
emergencies. His love for his brothers 
in this crisis developed many of the 
elements of womanly tenderness and 
womanly shortsightedness. Instead of 
chiding them when delinquent he but 


40 THE NINE BLESSINGS. 

tried the harder to be six persons instead 
of one. 

The digression from united effort to 
separate pursuits, starting at first imper- 
ceptibly, increased more and more until, 
at length, the five brothers merely drew 
their monthly profits, and if they 
thought of Heroicus at all it was as of 
some'great faithful machine whose chief 
use and duty in the world was to coin 
money and to be the figurehead at which 
to point whenever they wished to boast 
of proofs of the virtue in good blood, or 
to assert their claims to be respected for 
ability, wealth fairly earned, and the rec- 
titude, stability, and thrift characteristic 
of successful business enterprise. 

One day, in the autumn of 1873, the 
five brothers were severally annoyed and 
disturbed when summoned by Heroicus 
to appear without delay. It happened 
that the youngest had sat late at a great 


THE MISSION OF HEROICUS. 4 1 

public dinner the night before, and where 
he had been the most eloquent speaker 
of the occasion. The second had been 
secretly speculating and had made an 
appointment by which he hoped to delay 
the payment of a large sum of money 
which he had lost instead of won. The 
third, in the midst of the gay life he was 
leading, had become jealous and suspi- 
cious of his wife and had planned to sur- 
prise her by his presence at a distant 
summer resort. The fourth, who had 
little by little withdrawn his money from 
the firm, thinking he would be safer with 
a small investment there, if reverses 
should come, felt irritated because that 
morning and that morning only he could 
make an investment which, though sure 
to hamper Heroicus, meant an immediate 
and large profit to himself. The fifth 
had promised to attend a horse show and 
had given his private word to be the 


42 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


public buyer of the finest racer on 
record. 

The five brothers accordingly made 
their appearance before Heroicus, each 
feeling a private grievance against him. 

They found him awaiting them with 
great outward calmness ; but the young- 
est, who was sympathetic, noticed for the 
first time that his broad shoulders were 
bent, that his straight, firm mouth quiv- 
ered, and that there was a troubled, ab- 
sorbed look in his hitherto steady eye. 

Without any ado, but in tones of solic- 
itude and tenderness, Heroicus told his 
brothers that their great house had failed 
— failed so desperately that absolutely 
nothing would be left. 

The fourth brother, who was cold and 
prudent, but possessing a sense of justice 
which was forever striving with the more 
sordid qualities of his nature, said, “ He- 
roicus, the fifty thousand I drew out a 


THE MISSION OF HEROICUS. 


43 

week ago but have not used, although 
I expected to invest it this very day, I 
place at your service.” 

Heroicus grasped his hand in silence. 

“Is that all you have } ” asked the 
youngest, hotly. 

“It is not all, I am glad to say. I 
have duly provided for my old age and 
possible misfortune like this by settling 
a few thousands year by year on my 
wife. It would have been well for you, 
Heroicus, if you had taken thought for 
your future also.” 

Heroicus slightly bowed his head and 
looked thoughtfully on the ground. 

“ When did you discover things were 
going wrong } ” asked the suspicious 
brother. 

“ I have felt the stringency a long 
time,” replied Heroicus, looking up. 
“ But through effort by night and by 

day I have kept abreast of the markets 
4 


44 the nine blessings. 

till now. I — I have been short of help- 
ers, and — our reserve fund has not of 
late been what it used to be.” 

“We had such entire confidence in 
your ability, Heroicus!” said the fifth, 
who thought with chagrin of the horse 
he would never buy. 

“ Yes, and in your integrity,” said the 
brother who had looked out for himself 
judiciously. “ We do not, of course, 
doubt your integrity, but I am afraid you 
have been too sanguine and perhaps — 
rash — and extravagant.” 

“ Perhaps,” said Heroicus. 

“If you had the reserve Prudentius 
has settled on his wife for himself could 
the storm be weathered } ” asked the 
suspicious brother. 

“ Possibly,” said Heroicus. 

“ I should not feel justified in taking 
such a risk,” said Prudentius, calmly. “ A 
wife and children have claims — ” 


THE MISSION OF HEROICUS. 45 

“ Well,” broke in the fickle brother, “ we 
are all ruined, and we can thank Heroicus 

“Yes,” said Heroicus, sadly, “I blame 
myself for this catastrophe. I foresaw 
dimly what might happen when you, 
Robert, buried yourself in books and 
made your life one of leisure, and when 
you. Burton, took ventures foreign to 
your type of ability, and when you, Pru- 
dentius, drew out nearly one sixth of the 
stock, and when you, Frederick, became 
engrossed in horses. I should have 
warned you.” 

“ Yes,” said four of the brothers in cho- 
rus, “you have ruined us all. We are 
sorry for you, Heroicus, but we are sor- 
rier for ourselves.” 

“ Do not include me,” said Prudentius, 
with great dignity, and sitting apart in 
cold superiority. 

“ You rascal!” said the suspicious 
brother, hotly. 


46 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


“He is not a rascal,” said Heroicus. 
“He was prudent, and has always tried 
to be just.” 

The five youngest brothers thereupon 
fell into a violent quarrel. Each, while 
accusing Prudentius, envied what in 
their secret souls they called his wisdom. 
Only the youngest reached toward the 
eldest, and, taking Heroicus’s bent head 
to his breast, said, 

“ God helping me, I will shake off my 
indolence forever and begin life again 
with you, Heroicus.” 

The others, however, withdrew abso- 
lutely, and from that time forth steadily 
degenerated, each according to his tem- 
perament and habit. 

A year passed. The old house of 
“Heroicus Brothers” no longer existed. 
Neither money in the bank nor debts 
against its name perpetuated its memory. 

In his adversity, Heroicus attributed 


THE MISSION OF HEROICUS. 47 

the disasters befalling him to no one but 
himself. 

Gladly would he have started life 
again with all his brothers. But the 
four held aloof from him as if he were 
their common enemy, and gradually 
heaped up against him in their thought 
every possible calamity that might be- 
fall them. They even reached the con- 
clusion that one who had achieved so 
much in the past had willfully misused 
his powers and could employ his talents 
again to their general and instantaneous 
profit if he would. 

The suspicious brother, although see- 
ing Heroicus economize in every pos- 
sible way, felt sure that the eldest had 
also done what Prudentius had acknowl- 
edged, and that suddenly he would appear 
as rich and prosperous as ever. 

It came to pass, therefore, for the sake 
of peace, and because he realized the use- 


48 THE NINE BLESSINGS. 

lessness of explanation, that Heroicus 
also kept apart, turning his whole thought 
to repairing what had been undone. 

As he possessed the same ability as of 
old and a good degree of his former 
strength and the confidence as well of 
business people, and was willing to be- 
gin anew at the bottom, it happened 
once more, as a natural consequence, 
that with the flight of many years 
riches again accumulated. The young- 
est brother, who had stayed with him, 
shared his good fortune. 

When the others came back one by 
one to ask favors or to flatter or in- 
directly to apologize Heroicus received 
them with a heart of love, good will, and 
generosity. To their thanks he said : 

“ Do not thank me. It is God who 
gave me both ability and opportunity. 
It is he who has commanded me to 
freely give of what I have freely re- 


THE MISSION OF HEROICUS. 


49 


ceived I was more loving than just to 
you in the past, brothers. 

“ That was a wrong to you because 
God gave me discernment also. Let me 
repair the faults of a foolish tenderness 
and do unto you as I would be done by 
in a similar situation.” 

So the four brothers went their way, 
one calling him a rich fool, another wag- 
ging his head and saying, “He helps us 
in order to quiet his conscience,” a third 
to complain because money was given 
him in trust, and Prudentius to say, “ I 
will see to it while he lives, as he is 
growing to be an old man, to get out of 
him all I can.” 

The youngest brother, sitting with 
Heroicus in the peacefulness of a Sab- 
bath evening, interrupted him, as he read 
aloud, “ Blessed are the meek : for they 
shall inherit the earth,” to say, 

“ Heroicus, that is you.” 


Blessed are they which do Jmnger and 
thirst after righteousness : for they shall 
be filled. 


THE MISSION OF SERGIUS. 


51 


THE MISSION OF SERGIUS. 

N old man was toiling up a steep hill. 



Jy. His step was slow and his breath 
short. He stopped at frequent intervals 
to rest. 

Homes lined either side of the street, 
and their gable windows, rising one above 
the other like steps, showed the abrupt 
pitch of the ascent. 

Mrs. Crockett was peering out of her 
sitting room window as usual. She sat 
at this window the livelong day, and her 
keen, ninety-year-old eyes pounced upon 
every passer-by like a dog at a fly. 

“ O dear, O dear ! ” she said to herself. 
“ There goes Felicitas, and no one to 
take care of him. O my, O my ! ” 

When he reached the top of the hill 


52 THE NINE BLESSINGS. 

the old man stopped a long time and 
leaned panting upon his cane. His 
calm, full blue eyes rested upon a glori- 
ous prospect. The land fell away in 
every direction. Far below spread luxu- 
riant valleys. Fields of oats and corn and 
potatoes stretched in ribbons of varie- 
gated green to where the forest began. 
Beyond the woods rose the mountains ; 
above the mountains shone the sky like 
a liquid eye. 

“ The heavens declare the glory of 
God, and the firmament showeth his 
handiwork,” repeated the old man. 

Another man as aged regarded him 
from an upper window. It was the vil- 
lage minister. A look of intimate sym- 
pathy and appreciation passed over his 
venerable features as he said, lowly, 
aloud : 

The days of our years are threescore 
years and ten ; and if by reason of strength 


THE MISSION OF SERGIUS. 53 

they be fourscore years, yet is their 
strength labor and sorrow.’ Lord, pu- 
rify my heart, and make me, too, as wor- 
thy through thy grace to appear before 
thee when summoned as is Felicitas.” 

Felicitas was not the real name of the 
old man. One day, when a villager 
equally aged but sour and melancholy 
had complained of the weather, of his 
lot in life, and of God, the blue eyes of 
Sergius Keteltas had lighted with a soft 
indignation, and, bowing his head, he had 
said reverently, “ His ‘ ways are ways of 
pleasantness, and all his paths are 
peace.’ ” 

“ You ought to be called Felicitas,” said 
the other, sneeringly. 

And from that time forth he was called 
Felicitas, but in love and reverence, for 
there was no one else in the whole vil- 
lage whose life was such a literal exposi- 
tion of his belief 


54 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


After Felicitas had turned the key in 
his door and had opened the windows of 
his little house — for the evening was very 
warm and close — evidences were visible 
here and there that his life had been 
not always thus humbly ordered and 
solitary. 

One of the small rooms was filled with 
books from floor to ceiling. On the 
wall in another hung paintings of men 
and women whose dress and mien indi- 
cated rank and wealth. 

On a deal table lay an open volume of 
Amiel, while piled on the floor in or- 
derly confusion were works on science, 
history, ethics, and philosophy. 

Felicitas did not pause beside the 
books or even glance at the portraits, 
for he was later than usual in returning 
home, and he had to prepare his supper. 

When the frugal meal was ready he 
sat down, bowed his head, and a look of 


THE MISSION OF SERGIUS. 55 

exceeding peace and thankfulness over- 
spread his features. By and by, as if 
moved irresistibly, he began to pray 
aloud : 

“ Lord, Father, reverently beloved, 
my heart is full of thankfulness to-night. 
I thank thee for the gladness of the 
earth in this beautiful July, for the glory 
of the sky, for a shelter from heat and 
cold, for a refuge in a strange land from 
distress, for peace in my old age, for a 
little knowledge of thee, and, above all, 
for the gift of thy love and the con- 
sciousness of thy presence.” 

He paused, heaved a deep sigh and 
sat bowed in thought. Soon he began 
to pray again : 

“ I thank thee, dear Lord, for the 
blessed via criicis. I thank thee that 
thou hast given to me, after my repeated 
failures and shortcomings, the true 
knowledge of the heavenly meaning of 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


56 

renunciation. Lord, I believe I have re- 
nounced all in thy name, home and kin- 
dred, wealth and fame. I do hunger 
and thirst after righteousness. Fill me 
with thy Spirit.” 

Sergius Keteltas was a Russian. He 
had been accused and convicted of trea- 
son for giving food and clothing to some 
of his fellow-countrymen under suspicion 
of Nihilism. His high position, his 
great wealth, his powerful connections 
were unable to save him from the czars 
displeasure. He was forced to flee sud- 
denly and in disguise. He reached the 
U nited States in the steerage and to dis- 
cover on landing that the small sum of 
money he carried on his person had been 
stolen. 

A foreign land, a halting use of the 
English language, and a condition of 
poverty and disgrace are poor helps to 
bettering one’s condition. 


THE MISSION OF SERGIUS. 57 

The aged Russian, after repeated 
struggles ending in failure, found himself 
at last in a remote inland village among 
the spurs of the Adirondacks. 

After a time the books and pictures 
forwarded to him from home had suc- 
cessfully reached him, but thus far every 
effort to send him money had been 
foiled by government espionage. 

He had finally obtained a light posi- 
tion in a drug store with a wide patron- 
age among the hotels and the outlying 
districts, and the pittance thus earned 
yielded him a decent but meager support. 

But, although his lines had fallen in 
such obscure places, and although his 
associations were among the poor and 
uncultured, he had an influence over all 
with whom he came in contact that was 
like the mountain air in healthfulness. 
His stately manner was tempered by the 
most winning gentleness of countenance. 


58 THE NINE BLESSINGS. 

His comments on life, while full of phi- 
losophy and humor, indicated a pitying 
tenderness for human nature. 

Even in this mountain village there 
were drunkards and the shiftless poor. 
He spent his Sundays in looking them 
up and ministering to their needs of 
both body and soul. It was rarely the 
case that he took his supper alone, for 
many a poor waif knew he had only to 
lift the latch unbidden and unexpected 
to be welcomed as a glad and honored 
guest. 

And thus the years passed unevent- 
fully and so much alike that Sergius 
Keteltas almost lost account of time. 

At first the terrible silence which had 
fallen between him and his kindred 
seemed impossible to endure. Finally 
he realized that all of his own generation 
must have passed away or into the help- 
lessness of extreme as^e. 

o 


THE MISSION OF SERGIUS. 59 

One day, a short time before the even- 
ing on which we met him, he read of the 
confiscation of his estates. From that 
hour he began to die to all hopes, all 
ambitions, all longings for the things 
of this life. But the bitterness of the 
struggle was evident in the emaciation 
of his body, in the bright gleam of his 
beautiful eyes, and in the radiant serenity 
of his expression and presence. Unen- 
cumbered with the earthly, his soul rose 
on wings. His clear mind held com- 
munion through his books with the great 
souls of all ages. 

There settled gradually within him a 
peace so holy, a consciousness of divine 
things so profound, that he forgot in the 
nearness of a new life opening before 
him the trials and conflicts of the life 
that was passing out of sight. 

Old and young, the good and the bad, 

watched his declining strength and his 
5 


6o 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


solitary journeys up and down the hills 
as if he were the patron saint of their 
village. 

Many a bowl of fruit and loaf of fresh 
made cake or bread found its way to his 
cottage. He accepted them with the 
humility and grace of a child and the 
dignity of a prince. 

The clear, youthful sparkle of his eyes 
became almost unearthly. Neighbors 
asked one another with an anxious note 
in their voices from day to day if Felic- 
itas had been seen. His goings and 
comings from the drug store to his house 
were welcomed as evidences that he was 
still in the body. But one evening in 
the early autumn there came a sudden 
and unexpected summons. 

Again he had climbed the steep as- 
cent. Again, awe-struck with their 
beauty, he looked out over the everlast- 
ing hills, one thin hand resting on his 


THE MISSION OF SERGIUS. 6l 

cane, his hat held reverently in the other, 
the wind fluttering his white locks, his 
face glowing with more than its usual 
serenity. It was as if he saw the gates 
of glory slowly opening. 

The minister hastened out to ask him 
in to tea and an hour beside a fire of 
blazing pine knots. 

Sergius went back with him. 

The heat from the roaring fire felt 
grateful to him. He stretched his hands 
toward it ; he drank the cup of hot tea 
brought him like one who feels his 
strength failing. 

He all at once looked at the minister 
sitting opposite. 

“ My friend,” he said, between catches 
of faintly laboring breath, “ God shut me 
in to himself among these blessed hills. 
I praise his holy name.” 

“ Amen,” said the minister, reverently. 

After a little effort he continued ; 


62 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


“ I have hungered and thirsted after 
righteousness.” 

His breath failed once more. 

“ Blessed are they that hunger and thirst 
after righteousness,” said the minister, 
reverently, “ for they shall be filled.” 

The Russian bowed his head in 
assent. 

After that he did not talk. 

The ministers wife placed pillows be- 
hind his head. She chafed the withered 
hands. She wept beside him, praying 
him to give some token of recognition. 
But his spirit had gently and sweetly 
withdrawn to Him who gave it. 

“ Let us pray,” said the minister. 

While the aged couple were bowed in 
prayer a great commotion rose outside. 
It increased. It seemed as if the whole 
village were aroused. 

The minister at length went to the 
door, to meet there a man of foreign as- 


THE MISSION OF SERGIUS. 63 

pect and stately bearing who inquired if 
a certain Sergius Keteltas were inside. 

“ He was a brief instant ago.” 

“ Then tell me where I may find him, 
for I carry with me a message from the 
czar restoring to him his title and estates 
and bidding him hasten to St. Peters- 
burg.” 

“ Sir,” said the minister, bowing, “he 
has just answered the summons of the 
King of kings to a city not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens.” 


Blessed are the mercifid.'for they shall 
obtain mercy. 


THE MISSION OF GRATIUS. 


65 


THE MISSION OF GRATIUS. 

O VER a Western prairie, speeding its 
course like a cyclone, rushed a 
lightning express. The engineer of the 
express was Gratius. 

The keen wind, driving contrary to 
the momentum of the flying train, sent 
up a whirl of cinders and dust. Now 
and then a sharp crystalline bit cut the 
face of the engineer. The firemen and 
brakemen rubbed their grimy, greasy 
hands from time to time to warm them. 
The comfortable passengers in the lux- 
urious coaches looked out over the mo- 
notonous landscape and were glad to 
leave it behind them at the rate of fifty 
miles an hour. 

While Gratius guided his engine with 


66 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


an eagle eye, the quicker eye of his mind 
kept surveying the ills of the class in 
which he was born. 

After a while he came out along the 
shore of a vast lake. Its pale blue wa- 
ters billowing and shimmering in the sun- 
light were a gladsome sight. 

On the train thundered. It stopped 
in a great city beside the lake, the city 
of the poor man become rich. 

As Gratius guided his mighty engine 
out of the city, he came upon a bleak 
section of the prairie swept by the lake 
winds and sending up clouds of sand and 
dust. 

He conceived the idea of taking his 
savings to buy the barren spot, for he 
realized its possibilities in location and 
the ease with which it could be drained. 

“ Here,” he said to himself, “ I will build 
another city. I will get men who are 
rich, generous, and farsighted to help me 


THE MISSION OF GRATIUS. 67 

beautify it and gladden it with every 
comfort. It shall be a poor man’s para- 
dise. The firemen and brakemen and all 
others of my guild shall not need to grow 
decrepit, gray, and discouraged before 
they have homes in which to take com- 
fort and pride when their day’s work is 
finished. They shall enjoy in their 
prime, whatever their ability, if they are 
only industrious and moral, the material 
resultant of talent and wealth.” 

Gratius bought the land, explained 
his plan to others as wise as he and of 
large wealth ; and lo, the barren spot on 
the prairie began to blossom as the rose. 

H undreds of houses were built. When 
the winter winds blew, the heat from a 
central source afforded each home a tem- 
perature like that of summer. When the 
short days came, instead of dim oil lamps 
to light them, the new houses were radi- 
ant with electricity. Instead of wells and 


68 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


cisterns from which women laboriously 
drew water, the crystal current flowed 
from a common reservoir into every 
home. 

People from all over the world came 
to view the beautiful town that Gratius 
had builded. 

Gratius rejoiced to see the fruit of his 
thought give comfort to other men, who 
knew, as he knew, the discomforts of pov- 
erty. 

He was a just man. He rejoiced, 
therefore, when he was able to render 
unto those wise men who had added 
their money to his a dividend on their 
investment. 

This dividend, moreover, was the re- 
sult of a natural increase in value. 

The land on which the town stood was 
worth ten times what it was before. The 
water in the houses, the gas used for 
lighting them, the heat generated for 


THE MISSION OF GRATIUS. 69 

warming them were supplied in such vast 
quantities from the greater city near by 
that the newer one had all these bene- 
fits at the lowest rates, and money was 
thus left over for those who had planned 
and executed the enterprise. Everything 
was utilized ; for even the refuse was car- 
ried to farms where food products were 
raised for the inhabitants. 

Now it came to pass that as long as 
the people thought Gratius gave them 
houses and food and heat and light for a 
very little money, and better than they 
had ever had before, and also with no 
blessing accruing to him from his wis- 
dom, expenditure, and interest in their 
welfare, they were never tired of praising 
him and boasting of their improved con- 
dition. But as soon as they learned that 
there was a modest surplus they began 
to multiply their wants faster than their 
needs and knowledge, and to cry out, 


70 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


“ More, more ! ” They had libraries and 
lyceums, schools and churches, shady 
streets and ample houses ; but instead of 
all these good things awaking in them 
a desire to freely give as they had freely 
received, they desired only that their 
benefactor should be at perpetual sacri- 
fice. 

Now the thought which had sweetened 
the arduous labor of Gratius was the be- 
lief that he should have the love and grati- 
tude of those whom he had tried to lift to 
a higher scale of being. But as he was a 
just man, just to the best needs of the 
people in his town, just to those who had 
aided the enterprise, and just in keeping 
his own portion, he refused, though in bit- 
ter sadness of spirit, to waste the endow- 
ment of mind and wealth with which the 
Creator had blessed him. Then it was 
that the people who owed shelter and 
food, warmth and clothing, schools and 


THE MISSION OF GRATIUS. 71 

churches, employment and home to him, 
turned upon him and called him an 
oppressor of the poor. When he 
pleaded, “ I too was poor, and that was 
why I planned these beauties, comforts, 
and conveniences for you,” they cried out 
the louder, calling him a hard-hearted 
sinner because God had given him the 
secret of wealth. When he said pite- 
ously, “ If I gave the little that is left over 
to you, you would each be but a little bet- 
ter off, and I, being impoverished, would 
be helpless to meet emergencies for you 
in the future,” they but cried out the more, 
“ Away with the rich monster ! Let us 
destroy the shops where we labor. Let 
us stop the fountains and lay waste these 
houses. Let us destroy this city which 
is but a monument of one man’s thought 
and deed.” 

So, in their ignorance and greed, they 
despoiled their homes, they burned their 


72 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


shops, they ruined the city ; and their end 
was ten times worse than their former 
state. 

When these things happened Gratius 
prostrated himself in bitterness of spirit, 
crying, “ O, the ingratitude of man ! 
Wherefore was I born } '' And he died 
stripped of his wealth by those whom he 
had benefited. He was buried among 
paupers, and above his grave an un- 
known hand placed the inscription, 
“ Here lies one who robbed the poor in his 
lifetime and in his death lies nameless 
and dishonored.” 




Blessed are the pure in heart : for they 
shall see God, 


THE MISSION OF JUSTUS. 


75 


THE MISSION OF JUSTUS. 

HERE is a lake whose waters gush 



1 with unsullied beauty and sweetness 
from the springs which feed it. There are 
days when the atmosphere brooding over 
the lake is so clear that it is a perfect 
medium for light. There are times when 
the air and the lake are so much alike 
that the traveler sailing over the water 
cannot at once discover their point of 
union. 

The veil dividing spirit and matter 
becomes so tenuous to the pure in heart 
that at rare intervals heaven and earth 
are as one, and there is a blissful, exqui- 
site, and ineffably holy apprehension of 
God indescribable by words, music, or 
painting, but as real to him who has at- 


6 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


76 

tained to it as the memory of the “ touch 
of a vanished hand or the sound of a 
voice that is still.” The experience is 
accompanied by a consciousness of uni- 
versal, embracing love, of a divine ten- 
derness embodying in its wonderful man- 
ifestation a throb of mighty personality 
undefinable by the logical perception of 
the intellect, yet accepted as a fact by the 
recipient through a strange blending of 
all the powers of body, mind, and spirit. 
Thus it is that the pure in heart see 
God. They know that he is. They know 
that he manifests himself to them. His 
manifestation is a holy, spiritual revela- 
tion, and henceforth, though they may 
never speak of the experience, whether 
it be single or often repeated, their “ souls 
are like stars ; they dwell apart.” How 
could it be otherwise when they have 
caught even one passing glimpse of the 
King in his beauty ? In the world these 


THE MISSION OF JUSTUS. 77 

children of God have tribulation, but ever 
in their hearts they commune with them- 
selves joyfully, saying : “ Who shall sep- 
arate us from the love of Christ ? shall 
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, 
or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or 
sword } ” 

As no voice is perfect which has not a 
complete register, as no admiral would 
be trustworthy without the knowledge 
of the common sailor and the skill and 
authority of a commander, and as no 
heart can experience the depths of bliss 
without knowing the de profundis of sor- 
row, so no being can catch the reflection 
of divinity unless the medium of his 
thought, his feeling, and his desire be so 
unsullied that God can shine through 
him and in him. 

Here and there throughout the world 
are scattered these shining ones. They 
are isolated planetary lights glowing with 


78 THE NINE BLESSINGS. 

unbroken, steadfast radiance. They are 
in high places and low. Some are rich 
and others poor. Some are talented and 
others have only feeble powers ; but 
wherever they are, or whatever their ca- 
pacity, they are pure in heart. They 
are usually found among those who have 
had one sweet tie of love after another 
severed, or hope for this world so dimin- 
ished that it can prove no impediment to 
growth in grace, or ambition baffled at 
every turn, or body so afflicted or sup- 
pressed that it is like some broken vase 
of precious ointment whose rare perfumes 
are scattered broadcast. 

When the pure in heart reach heaven 
they enter into its rest through complete 
exhaustion. They die worn out. The 
light shining within them is too intense 
for its medium. 

Justus was a young man of twenty, 
who, while kneeling in prayer, received 


THE MISSION OF JUSTUS. 79 

the witness of the Spirit. In his solemn 
rapture he said, in all sincerity of pur- 
pose, “ Adorable Father, for thee I re- 
nounce all that this beautiful world con- 
tains — all ! A thrill of unspeakable 

awe passed through him as he said alL 
It was as if the room were filled with 
other spirits witnessing his vow. 

God accepted his renunciation. 

The young man sought to put his vow 
into immediate practice, not waiting for 
a means to be revealed. He chose his 
renunciation, for he had a generous, posi- 
tive nature, a strong will, and great pow- 
ers of execution. He therefore said to 
God : “ Dear Lord, I love my country. 
I had meant to be one who would 
help administer its affairs. I give this 
ambition up for thy sake. I will 
spend my life among the heathen, teach- 
ing them what thou hast taught me.” 
After accepting his new life and new 


8o 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


mission the young man became proudly 
eager to spend himself to the utmost in 
Africa. 

When his steamer was ready to sail he 
was suddenly stricken with disease, and, 
after a recovery which could never be 
anything but partial, was pronounced 
unfit for missionary service. 

His disappointment was extreme, but 
he soon turned to his original calling and 
in time became spoken of as a rising 
statesman. 

He was one of the organizers of a new 
political party. On all hands his voice 
was heard proclaiming truths unpalatable 
to the masses but needing a preacher 
and interpreter. By and by his elo- 
quence rendered them acceptable. They 
were taken up as the watchword of the 
old party, and its leaders, on the merits 
of their new platform, were elected to 
office. 


THE MISSION OF JUSTUS. 8[ 

The young man thus found himself 
without a party, and no longer a leader. 
In the bitterness of his sense of per- 
sonal defeat he cried out against God, 
“ O God, why am I hindered on every 
hand ” 

Meanwhile the missionary who had 
gone to Africa in his stead had opened a 
large field, had won many souls to the 
truth, and was loaded with honors by the 
Church which he represented. 

The young man gradually became 
overwhelmed with the thought of his 
uselessness, of the pitiful insignificance of 
any one human being, and, in his despair 
and terror over what appeared to him a 
blank existence, he cried out, “ O God, 
let me work for thee ! ” 

And God remembered his acceptance 
of the young man's vow, and did not 
waver from his purpose. 

After months of unsuccessful struggle 


82 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


to do and secret unwillingness to be, the 
profound significance of his vow dawned 
upon Justus. 

He bowed again before God, and in 
humility and contrition cried out : 

“ I have erred and strayed from thy 
ways like a lost sheep, and there is no 
help in me, miserable offender. Do with 
me as thou wilt, thou wise and tender 
and loving One. Make me useless or 
useful as thou seest best. Choose thou 
my vocation. Only give me singleness 
of heart in my love for thee. Make me 
pure in heart. ‘ Let the words of my 
mouth, and the meditation of my heart, 
be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my 
strength, and my redeemer.’ ” 

The young man went out from before 
God justified. 

In the course of years he became a 
judge of the supreme court and admin- 
istered justice so impartially, and withal 


THE MISSION OF JUSTUS. 83 

with such compassion, that he was called 
the righteous judge. 

While honors were heaped upon him 
fortune also increased. His wife was his 
friend, counselor, and companion, and 
his children grew up around him health)^ 
talented, and virtuous. All that the 
world could give was his. In his old 
age he rejoiced greatly in his family, his 
wealth, and his honor, and men spoke of 
the “ pardonable pride ” of the judge. 

In the height of his usefulness and 
power God spoke to the judge of his 
vow. To his terror and in his remorse 
the old man realized that he had grown 
to love as his own and for himself the 
blessings heaped upon him. 

Again, in contrition, he prayed for for- 
giveness and a pure heart. 

God heard him, and in infinite tender- 
ness prepared him for a new visitation 
of mercy. 


84 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


Soon calumny assailed the unspotted 
name of the judge. While this was sap- 
ping his strength and dimming his eye, 
his wife died. Disaster then overtook 
his children. The judge said to himself, 
“ My friends will not desert me.” But the 
friends who understood his need were 
few, and there was not one on whom he 
could lean. Soon fortune took to her- 
self wings, and at seventy the judge was 
not only lonely, sad, and under the shad- 
ow of disgrace, but penniless and feeble. 

In the soreness of his heart he said in 
solitude of spirit and great heaviness of 
soul : “ ‘ The days of our years are three- 
score years and ten ; and if by reason of 
strength they be fourscore years, yet is 
their strength labor and sorrow.’ Lord, 
take me away from the evil there is in 
the world.” 

And the Lord, remembering the vow, 
and loving the old judge and pitying him 


THE MISSION OF JUSTUS. 85 

with infinite pity, brought to his mind 
the meaning of his vow anew. Once 
more, after some travail of spirit, he was 
able to do as he had done in the distant 
past. Again he exclaimed : “ Adorable 
Father, I renounce all for thee — all ! ” 

A great peace came upon the aged 
man and remained with him. 

By and by the calumny was refuted. 
His honor shone brighter than ever. 
But earthly fame seemed of little account 
to him now. He thanked his friends for 
their .congratulations, but his thought 
was on Him who “ sticketh closer than a 
brother.” Riches returned as quickly as 
they had disappeared, but the companion 
of his heart was where they were not 
needed, and the judge lavished his money 
on the poor. He lived in the past and 
in anticipation of that eternal future 
which seemed at any moment likely to 
begin. His children achieved success 


86 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


and prosperity again, and the day was a 
happy one when he saw them useful, 
honored, and comfortable once more. 
Nevertheless, morning, noon, and night 
his secret prayer was : “ Lord, now let- 
test thou thy servant depart in peace.” 

The old judge became so homesick 
for heaven, and so eager to abide with 
Him who had so lovingly and constantly 
revealed the true inwardness of renun- 
ciation and consecration, that gradually 
the sweetness of earthly ties, tender and 
beautiful as they are, was absorbed by 
the one which is the source of all that 
is sacred in love. 

One night, while sitting in his chair 
overlooking the lake I have described, 
and while pondering on the puerile au- 
dacity of man who so belittles God in con- 
tinually saying, “To thy honor and thy 
glory,” as if God did not have all the 
honor and glory he needed, and while 


THE MISSION OF JUSTUS. 87 

deeply pondering the methods the heav- 
enly Father has for developing his chil- 
dren under conditions where they can, 
even in this human existence, begin the 
blessed life of the Spirit, what had been 
an earthly life to the judge blended sud- 
denly and forever with the eternal life. 
Quietly, sweetly, instantly, he passed 
from the seen into the unseen. 


Blessed are the peacemakers: for they 
shall be called the children of God, 


THE MISSION OF THE DOMINIE. 89 


THE MISSION OF THE DOMINIE. 

H e was known through all that 
country neighborhood as the dom- 
inie. 

His parish was a remote and moun- 
tainous district, and all his flock were 
“poor.” His people had the faults 
usually attendant on extreme poverty. 
They lived a withdrawn and an indrawn 
life. Their views were narrow and their 
experience limited. As their scant pos- 
sessions had been slowly and laboriously 
accumulated through extreme labor, they 
treasured them with suspicious watchful- 
ness and by a daily self-denial which knew 
no stint. They were also quarrelsome 
over trifles and envious of prosperity. 
But, on the other hand, they had the 


90 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


blessed virtues of poverty. When they 
spoke of life one to another in the twilight 
hours while lingering around their door- 
steps they said, as if it were the most 
natural and obvious conclusion to have 
reached, “ For here we have no con- 
tinuing city.” They were faithful in 
their loves. A few who had gone out into 
the world had one by one returned 
homesick for the mountain air and for 
the rigid uprightness of simple codes of 
barter and trade. They were ungraceful 
in speech and uncouth in manner, but 
their yea meant yea, and their nay, nay. 
Although the outward aspect of their 
lives was parsimonious and niggardly, 
they were generous and sympathetic in 
misfortune, and at such times practiced 
the apostolic injunction to share all 
things in common. Continued hardship, 
long hours of labor, few comforts, and 
small ambitions made them generous of 


THE MISSION OF THE DOMINIE. 91 

their strength, their time, their posses- 
sions, and their hopes. 

Such was the dominie’s parish. 

The dominie himself possessed ap- 
parently every gift but one essential to 
his calling. His fatal lack was the gift 
of eloquence. And as it is necessary to 
speak with the tongues of men and of 
angels, no matter what the rest of the 
endowment, in order to command place 
and power, the dominie found himself 
at forty, though to the manner born and 
university bred, stranded, as his friends 
said, like Noah’s ark on a mountain top. 

When the conviction first settled upon 
him, and a conviction born of the logic 
of fact, that he had reached the zenith 
of his power and was, though “ called of 
God,” appointed to serve him in the 
lowliest of places instead of in the high 
ones, the dominie fell into great anguish 
of spirit. The pride of the flesh encom- 


92 THE NINE BLESSINGS. 

passed him. The vain pomps and vani- 
ties of this world pursued him night and 
day. The associations of his youth and 
early manhood constrained him toward 
the centers of culture and learning. 
But, nevertheless, as he had received a 
call, and a clear one, to feed a portion of 
God’s flock, and as the love of God was 
the ruling power in his soul, by and by, 
after sore travail of spirit, after much 
prayer and fasting, and after stripping 
himself of all those secret complacencies 
and conceits in which the heart of man de- 
lights, he prostrated himself before his 
Maker in blessed renunciation of will. 

When he came forth from this com- 
munion he gazed on the circle of moun- 
tains guarding the tiny valley beneath 
him like a cup of the Holy Grail. As 
he listened to the tinkle of the cowbells 
and watched the peaceful herds winding 
homeward slowly o’er the lea, as he 


THE MISSION OF THE POMINIE. 93 

looked at the modest steeple of his little 
church and the sunset light incrusting 
its windows with jewels, and as he noticed 
one after another of his humble parish- 
ioners returning, bowed and serious 
from the day’s work, he said reverently 
and as if with some new and fine appre- 
ciation of the truth : “ Hath not God 
chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, 
and heirs of the kingdom which he hath 
promised to them that love him ? But 
ye have despised the poor.” 

And now the sun set below the bare 
top of the highest peak, transforming the 
jagged rocks of its summit into a crown 
of glorified thorns. A cool, bracing wind 
rose from the depths darkening below- 
The fragrance of a thousand mingled 
odors spiced the air. As the day faded 
and the night gathered, “ a light that 
never was on sea or land ” shone upon 
the dominie’s soul. 


94 the nine blessings. 

Then it was that he became a high 
priest after the order of Melchizedek. 
Then it was that he was lifted above the 
fleeting splendors of temples made with 
hands. Then it was he entered for the 
first time into the Holy of Holies. As 
if the very voice that had sounded in St. 
Peter’s ears rang in his, he said aloud: 
“ Call not thou any man common or un- 
clean.” 

Raising his hands in an attitude of 
prayer and lifting his eyes to the solemn 
blue of the mountain sky, he said aloud 
and with awe-struck tremulousness : 
“ What is man, that thou art mindful of 
him ? and the son of man, that thou visit- 
est him ? ” 

Communion was on the following 
Sabbath. 

The little church was filled. The long 
windows on either side were wide open. 
Outside was heard the wind praying and 


THE MISSION OF THE DOMINIE. 95 

chanting in the pines and hemlocks. 
The sunlight fell unbroken by clouds 
upon the grassy beds of those who were 
asleep in Jesus. Inside, the aged and 
the young and the serious fathers and 
mothers bowed their heads before the 
Most High. 

The dominie looked strangely youth- 
ful. He was a slight, spare man, with a 
full, eloquent blue eye. It glistened 
with the fervor of majestic thought and 
expanded with the suggestion of spirit- 
ual impulse. But nature had denied him 
a flow of words and grace of expression, 
and therefore he often stood before his 
people looking like one transfigured yet 
powerless to communicate except in 
commonplace language his wonderful 
thoughts and fancies. 

All the night before he had prayed 
for this people ; in humbleness of spirit 
and unselfish longing for them he had 


96 THE NINE BLESSINGS. 

prayed to be given a message for the 
communion. 

He did not expect a miracle to be per- 
formed in his behalf. Knowing, however, 
that he was now in very truth a vessel 
consecrated to the Lord, he dared hope 
God would use him as a chalice for some 
rare wine of the spirit. 

The prayerful and devotional among 
his people felt, as they looked at their 
dominie’s face that morning, a new and 
uplifting sense of things unseen. His 
countenance was like a window through 
which they beheld God. As, after a sul- 
try day, when the garish light disappears 
and the stars come out, and the coolness 
communicates itself from the upper airto 
the lower, while not a leaf stirs, and the 
voice of the wind is still, so, over his 
whole congregation, as he stood before 
them, silent, a sense of sacred refreshing 
calm stole. 


THE MISSION OF THE DOMINIE. 97 

When the dominie said, 

“ The Lord is in his holy temple,” his 
hearers swayed like a field of grain 
bending under the breath of the summer 
breeze. 

“ Praise ye the Lord,” said the domi- 
nie. 

“ The Lord’s name be praised,” ex- 
claimed the people, and there was some- 
thing so worshipful, adoring, and spon- 
taneous in their reply that the dominie 
knew his prayer was answered. 

As if without volition, and altogether 
forgetful of the order of the regular serv- 
ice, he stretched forth his hands yearn- 
ingly and said : 

“And I will pray the Father, and he 
shall give you another Comforter, that he 
may abide with you forever ; even the 
Spirit of truth ; whom the world cannot 
receive, because it seeth him not, neither 
knoweth him : but ye know him ; for he 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


dwelleth with you, and shall be in 
you.” 

A small sunny-faced girl stared at him 
wonderingly and with awe. A white- 
haired man who stood leaning on his 
cane wiped away a tear. A woman from 
whose countenance joy and youth had 
prematurely fled felt a thrill, and she 
clasped her thin hands as if unconsciously 
clinging to a blessed support suddenly 
made visible. 

All stood expectant, as if in their midst 
was the very pool of Bethesda, over 
which the angel of healing might appear. 

And now the dominie, drawing his 
slender figure up to its full height and as 
if pouring into the words all the heart- 
aches and the abnegation of a lifetime, 
exclaimed in joyful, ringing tones, 

“ But thanks be to God, which giveth 
us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ.” 


THE MISSION OF THE DOMINIE. 99 

“ Amen ! ” said the people with one 
accord, and as if spellbound with convic- 
tion of the truth of the dominie’s words. 

He looked at them long and earnestly, 
and finally his lips opened again. 

“ Therefore, my beloved brethren,” he 
said, “ be ye steadfast, unmovable, always 
abounding in the work of the Lord, 
forasmuch as ye know that your labor is 
not in vain in the Lord. 

“ For now we see through a glass, 
darkly ; but then face to face : now I 
know in part ; but then shall I know even 
as also I am known.” 

He stepped to the communion table 
and uncovered it. The piles of white 
bread cut in cubes, and the tall goblets 
which he filled with wine presented to 
his gaze emblems replete with sacrificial 
meaning. He put these emblems rever- 
ently to his lips. 

“ Brethren,” he said, “ let us pray.” 


100 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


All knelt. 

“Thou God of grace and mercy,” he 
said, with solemn emphasis, “ we thank 
thee that thou art manifestly present. 
Fill us with the greatest of all the gifts 
of thy Spirit, the gift of love. We know 
that prophecies shall fail, tongues shall 
cease, and knowledge vanish away. But 
love is eternal. May it have in us its full 
expression of long-suffering. Keep us 
from envy. Help us to be neither boast- 
ful nor vain because of this great gift 
of love. Make us like little children, for 
of such is the kingdom of heaven. O, 
Father, thou unspeakably holy and beau- 
tiful One, thou who didst send thy Son to 
bring peace and good will among men, fill 
our hearts with that peace which the world 
neither giveth nor taketh away. Grant 
us the power to bestow this peace one 
upon another, enabling us thus to live 
together as ministering spirits.” 


THE MISSION OF THE DOMINIE. lOI 

His voice died away as if hushed by 
the immanent sweetness and majesty of 
Him who can be apprehended only in 
seasons when the flesh is under the ab- 
solute dominion of the soul. 

Men and women, even the little chil- 
dren, partook of the communion that day 
as if a seal had been taken from their 
vision and they beheld themselves abid- 
ing in heavenly tabernacles. 

The calm midsummer day outside was 
a fit emblem of the calm and restfulness 
within. No one wondered at the unusual 
order of the service on the way home. No 
one criticised the sermon. It was, in- 
deed, a very short one. The text was : 
“ Though I speak with the tongues of 
men and of angels, and have not charity, 
I am become as sounding brass, or a tin- 
kling cymbal.” 

The heart of each was full. As they 
parted, one to go this way, another that, 


102 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


they spoke of their dominie, and they 
spoke of him lovingly and feelingly. One 
told of his kindness to the poor, another 
of his patience with little children, and a 
third said that since he had come among 
them the old neighborhood feuds had 
died out, the discords in families had 
grown less frequent. 

The dominie continued to preach 
many years in his mountain parish. 

In time the lofty sides of the moun- 
tains were zigzagged by railways. Their 
hearts were pierced with tunnels. Great 
hotels rose on their summits. Rich 
mines were opened. Former methods 
of gaining a livelihood ceased, and some 
of the mountaineers became men of 
great wealth. 

In ripeness of years and fullness of 
power to minister the dominie passed 
away. 

On the site of his little church stands 


THE MISSION OF THE DOMINIE. 103 

a memorial chapel built of the rugged 
granite of his beloved mountains. Win- 
dows of jeweled glass record his virtues. 
Over the exterior door of the chapel, 
cut in letters bold and deep, are the 
words : “How beautiful are the feet of 
them that preach the gospel of peace, 
and bring glad tidings of good things ! 

The memory of those who loved him 
and the traditions of his entire flock bear 
witness that he wrought a mighty work 
among them, as if he were indeed a min- 
istering angel sent from God. 


Blessed are they which are persecuted 
for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the 
kingdom of heaven. 

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile 
you, and persecute you, and shall say all 
manner of evil against you falsely, for 
my sake. 

Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for 
great is your reward in heaven : for so 
persecuted they the prophets which were 
before you. 


THE MISSION OF RUTH. 


105 


THE MISSION OF RUTH. 

T here was once a woman of whom 
everybody spoke as the dearest old 
maid in the world. She was such a con- 
venient, comfortable old maid to have 
around. She never appeared weary of 
hearing happy mothers talk hours at a 
time about their babies, although deep 
in the bottom of her sweet heart was a 
perpetual ache because she had no chil- 
dren of her own. 

As she never seemed to want any- 
thing, her sisters and brothers and friends 
enjoyed taking and keeping all they 
wished of any luxury in her presence, 
because Ruth made self-denial a luxury. 

Wherever there was a sick room or a 
bed of death or a mother who required 


I 06 THE NINE BLESSINGS. 

an outing, Ruth was sent for. People 
said she needed no pity, when she got 
tired out with nursing, or nervously ex- 
hausted with the drain on her sympathy, 
or sleepless from taking care of boys and 
girls she had not trained — “ because, you 
know, these things are Ruth s very ex- 
istence and she would be perfectly mis- 
erable without them.” 

All this was in a measure true, for 
she had made it the rule of her life to 
minister and not expect to be ministered 
unto — only sometimes she felt the need 
of a little more stimulus from example. 

She moved in a circle of happy, pros- 
perous people who nursed all their own 
little aches and pains, talked fine philoso- 
phy about the hygienic uses of pleasure 
and repose, and who gave willingly of 
possessions they did not want and of many 
they could comfortably do without. 

She had trunks full of things on which 


THE MISSION OF RUTH. 107 

she had to pay storage ; things her 
friends had given her which they never 
would have worn again themselves, but 
out of which “ Ruth, with so much time 
on her hands, could make really elegant 
affairs.” She always accepted these “ gifts,” 
“ as a slight token of the help she had 
been in an hour of need,” with a smiling 
“ thank you,” for she was too delicate to 
refuse them and too wise to bestow silks 
and velvets, old-fashioned as they were, 
on the very poor. 

Years passed and some died in the 
neighborhood and others moved away. 
Newcomers appeared, and to these as 
well Ruth filled in the gaps. When for- 
mer residents occasionally returned and 
asked what changes had taken place, 
there was a smile, half humorous and 
half loving, when the remark followed, 
“ But Ruth is here still — the same dear, 

sweet old Ruth.” 

8 


I08 THE NINE BLESSINGS. 

She had always been a proper old 
maid. When the days were the hottest 
she stayed dressed to see those untimely 
callers sure to appear when the mercury 
is in the nineties, and thus saved the 
strength of her friends who needed a 
nap. In winter, as she did not mind the 
cold, the room in which the fire would 
not burn was given to her. She was 
so vivacious and full of tact that she was 
forever being asked to fill the seat made 
vacant at the last minute for a lunch or 
dinner. She was seldom one of the first 
invited guests. 

She was so discreet that what went on 
in one family was never told by her in 
another. Here and there a mother to 
whose spiritual eyes the beautiful mis- 
sion of this dear old maid was revealed 
named the new baby for her, so that 
in time there was quite a sprinkling of 
little Ruths in the neighborhood. But, 


THE MISSION OF RUTH. IO9 

as dear as she was and as much as she 
was wanted in trouble, there was never 
a house that threw its doors so wide open 
to her at other seasons that her domestic 
instincts dared expand and permit her to 
“ settle down ” to those pleasant, unevent- 
ful days only belonging to people who 
have a home of their own. 

In all her life thus far — and it had crept 
along till she was thirty-eight — Ruth had 
violated no canon of propriety or de- 
parted from the conventionalities of the 
set among whom her lot was cast. Thus 
it was true when it was said, “ Everybody 
loves Ruth.” It was also true that she 
was loved because she was a tender, sweet 
woman, and with a strength of character 
which thus far had needed to express 
itself in doing for others only in ways 
that immediately appealed to their ma- 
terial need or their selfishness. 

It happened, therefore, when her time 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


1 10 

came to enter upon another mission that 
she was the subject of more comment 
than the rest of the community put to- 
gether. 

“ O, these restless old maids!” ex- 
claimed one man in whose family she 
had been a ministering spirit for ten 
years. 

“ Ruth has gone off on a tangent at 
last,” said another, on hearing of the 
stand she had taken. “Such perfection 
was too good to last.” 

“Well, I thought her too conventional 
ever to do anything absurd,” exclaimed 
a lady whom she had cheered through 
months of despondency. 

“ Marriage would give her the neces- 
sary poise,” said a nervous, cranky man 
whose own domestic life was a sorry 
failure. 

“ She has joined the ranks of the ad- 
vanced,” said another, contemptuously, 


THE MISSION OF RUTH. 


Ill 


“ and that is the end of her career so- 
cially.” 

Now Ruth felt the change of attitude 
toward her, but it was not so marked 
that it was very hard to bear, for years 
of sweet ministering had left too deep an 
impress on the community for anyone to 
find fault with her to her face. Her 
friends at first pitied her more than they 
condemned, although the condemnation 
was surely though slowly growing. 

The strange thing which Ruth had 
done was to join the Salvation Army. 

No one who saw her could doubt that 
such a step cost her an effort. Her 
dainty niceties of quiet dress, her love 
of retirement, her reticence concerning 
her spiritual life — all this indicated that 
her conduct was the result of profound 
conviction that she could do the greatest 
good by being a Salvationist. She had 
several gifts besides nursing, comforting, 


II2 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


and self-denial. She could sing, and, 
when stirred by deep emotion, could ex- 
press herself eloquently. Then she had 
that fortunate kind of presence, partly a 
direct gift from God and partly a com- 
bination of character and personal beauty, 
which inspires trust and admiration. 

It naturally followed, therefore, that, as 
soon as she began to labor and pray 
among the humble, lowly, and desolate 
ones with whom the Salvation Army is 
such a mighty power for God, great bless- 
ings attended her efiforts. 

Her friends would not have found 
open fault if Ruth’s ministry had been a 
private one, but to see her walk through 
the streets behind a brass band playing 
martial music to which the most soul- 
stirring hymns were sung, to meet her 
on this corner and that in a poke bonnet 
with a red ribbon on which stared the 
letters. Salvation Army — these things 


THE MISSION OF RUTH. II3 

were, indeed, an outrage against their 
sense of propriety. 

By and by the little children who had 
loved her so dearly and confided their 
troubles to her began to look askance at 
her, for on every hand they heard her 
called “ queer.” Just what queer meant 
they hardly knew, but, accompanied as 
the word was with looks of disapproval, it 
implied something dreadful, and, with the 
facility of their age, the children learned 
to unlove. 

She was no longer invited to dinner 
parties or lunches, even as a last resort. 
Gradually the houses where she had 
been a familiar guest knew her no more. 
Moreover, when she had neither strength 
nor leisure to pour herself out lavishly 
in the old channels, her faults began to 
be discovered and talked over with the 
finest logical discrimination. 

While in the midst of good works and 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


1 14 

while entering upon a broader career of 
usefulness than she had ever dreamed of, 
and while proving the truth that renun- 
ciation is capable of perpetual renewal in 
strange and unexpected phases, so that 
with all God’s chosen ones the growth 
and pruning for the kingdom continues 
to the end, she underwent the great 
temptation of her life. 

Hitherto all had spoken well of her. 
All who knew her cherished the thought 
of her. Now, while on the one hand 
she was welcomed and blessed by those 
who could only receive but never give, 
she was forsaken by those who, while 
having received for years all she could 
give, had, also, by their mere association 
and comradeship, invested her daily walk 
with sweet amenities and refinements 
which she found it a great sacrifice to 
relinquish. 

Censure, neglect, plain living with 


THE MISSION OF RUTH. 11$ 

high thinking, constant association with 
squalor and misery combined, scoffs and 
jeers from street gamins, cursings for a 
cup of cold water offered “ in His name,” 
exposure night and day to the bitter 
cold of winter and the ardent heat of 
summer, brought, after several months, a 
terrible physical reaction upon Ruth. 

She longed, as she had never thought 
it possible for her to do, for the flesh- 
pots of Egypt. She hungered for the 
common task, the safe conventionalities, 
the time taken, even if late at night, for 
the adornment of her person, the recre- 
ation as dear to women in the prime of 
life as to the young. 

Temptation to turn back beset her. 
Powers of darkness surged about her, 
persuading her that her mission was 
with her own class. Weariness so 
nearly overcame her that the vision of 
a cool, sweet, quiet chamber with white 


Il6 THE NINE BLESSINGS. 

draperies and pretty ornaments was ever 
before her. But while thus beset within 
and without she prayed unceasingly. 
She went about day and night teaching 
and speaking and singing for her Lord. 
She accepted without defense as the 
Christ had done before her condemna- 
tion and sarcasm. During all her con- 
flict with the world, the flesh, and the 
devil, her work grew in power, and 
through her ministrations many souls 
were born into the kingdom. 

There came a blessed day when the 
desire for the former things ceased. She 
came out of her dark wilderness of min- 
gled doubt, regret, and perplexity into 
an open way, and from that time for- 
ward the light within her shone un- 
dimmed. 

In the course of years Ruth’s strength 
failed. Her voice grew weak. She 
could no longer perform her evening 


THE MISSION OF RUTH. II/ 

tasks. After a little further effort the 
morning duties ended. One day the 
doctor told her, in tones which showed 
how hard the task was for him, that she 
must soon die. Her face broke up into 
happy smiles. 

She lay alone for some time on the 
little iron bed, after the physician had 
left her, and it was then that her soul 
entered upon a new and profound ex- 
perience of peace. She lived where the 
poor were all about her. They came 
every day in flocks to ask after her. A 
man who had resented her approaches, 
and had once struck her when she per- 
sisted in her pleadings with him, broke 
down completely when told he should 
never see her again. 

The friends of her girlhood and early 
womanhood, on hearing that Ruth had 
finished her course, suddenly felt as if 
scales had dropped from their eyes, and 


Il8 THE NINE BLESSINGS. 

the mothers who had named their little 
daughters for her hugged them closer, 
whispering, “ I am so glad your name is 
Ruth.” On every hand saint and sinner 
spoke of her as of one consecrated to 
God. Her old minister preached a ser- 
mon from the text, “ The path of the just 
is as the shining light, that shineth more 
and more unto the perfect day.” 

And, indeed, there seemed to be some- 
thing of a celestial halo about the dying 
woman. It was even granted unto her to 
be “ caught up into paradise.” 

She longed to go, saying that while she 
was present in the body she was absent 
from her dear Lord. 

She no longer thought of her mission. 
It was ended. 

She seemed to have forgotten that her 
path through life had been strewn all the 
weary, patient way with thorns. Spent 
after the long journey, she lay there on 


THE MISSION OF RUTH. 119 

her narrow iron bed serene and beautiful 
as a summer twilight. 

One Sunday morning, when a group 
of girls came together asking that they 
might see Ruth once more to thank her 
for all she had suffered for and through 
them, they were admitted at her urgent 
request, although doctors and friends 
were now guarding the remnant of her 
ebbing life as if it were some rare elixir 
of immortality to them all. 

The girls came in one by one till there 
were twenty kneeling or standing around 
her bed. 

The sunlight streamed through the 
open windows. The wind rustled the 
fresh June leaves. The Sabbath bells 
were ringing, and the air perfumed with 
roses in the height of their bloom filled 
the chamber with fragrance. 

The girls had made one of their num- 
ber a spokesman. After mentioning the 


120 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


dark nights in which Ruth had come to 
their rescue and the desolation from 
which she had saved them, one after an- 
other broke down, and a silence undis- 
turbed except by suppressed weeping 
fell upon everybody but her who had 
ministered. She lay still for a few mo- 
ments, and then, as if inspired by a feel- 
ing of the divine motherhood ever pres- 
ent in good women, she opened her 
gentle eyes, and gazing from one to an- 
other began to say entreatingly and with 
frequent pauses, which added a strange 
new emphasis to the words : 

“Beloved, ‘I desire that ye faint not 
at my tribulations for you — which is 
your glory. For this cause I bow my 
knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, of whom the whole family’ — the 
whole family, beloved — ‘ in heaven and 
earth is named, that he would grant you, 
according to the riches of his glory, to be 


THE MISSION OF RUTH. 


12 


Strengthened — with might — by his Spirit 
in the inner man ; that Christ may 
dwell in your hearts by faith ; that ye, 
being rooted and grounded in love, may 
be able to comprehend with all saints 
what is the breadth, and length, and 
depth, and height ; and to know the love 
of Christ, which passeth knowledge — that 
ye might be filled — with all the fullness 
—of God!”’ 

These were Ruth’s last words. 

They buried her in a little country 
churchyard. 

Above her grave is a simple stone 
bearing the brief inscription, 

“ A Ministering Angel.” 


122 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


CONCLUSION. 

NE by one God s ministering angels 



accomplished the period of exile. 
The veil which had darkened their vision 
was removed, and the eons of their life 
in heaven were knitted in memory to the 
brief span of their mortal existence. 

When they saw the Father face to face 
once more, they hid their weary hearts 
in his love and were healed of all their 
suffering. 

They read thoughts in the Almighty 
heart of love which were not as their 
thoughts had been before the blessed 
baptism of pain, renunciation, and strug- 
gle. Now they knew, even as they also 
had been always known ; and adoring, 
rapturous, and thankful, they said with a 


CONCLUSION. 


23 


new and deeper meaning, “ Holy, holy, 
holy. Lord God Almighty, heaven and 
earth are full of thy glory.” 

There were no angels in heaven who 
had the beauty of these who had received 
the knowledge of good and evil while 
abiding on the earth. 

The love which had made them 
greater than the others in the beginning 
now constrained them a hundredfold 
more. 

They knew what it meant to have hu- 
man endowment of hope, ambition, and 
an insatiable desire for happiness and 
affections which absorbed the whole be- 
ing, and to lose one by one possessions 
so fair in order to agonize in spirit to- 
ward the things which are but dimly 
seen. A mighty tenderness impelled 
them to stand ever on the shores of that 
great and solemn river flowing into the 
ocean of lonely mortality, so that earth s 


124 the nine blessings. 

children should learn almost before they 
lost the human vision in the heavenly 
that there was a fulfillment of promise, 
and a recompense as great as the heart of 
the Father and as everlasting as his love. 

And as the weary ones of time drew 
near in never-ceasing throngs to the 
river flowing before the city of God 
these ministering spirits cheered them by 
saying, “ Let not your heart be troubled, 
neither let it be afraid.” 

Beata yearned with such pitying solici- 
tude over those to whom life had been 
one long negation that sometimes while 
crossing the sweet waters of the nameless 
stream whose hither shore means rest 
they had faint glimpses of the glorious 
spirit beckoning them to her embrace 
and ministration. 

And Astrea sent such a throb of bliss- 
ful hope into the hearts of mothers draw- 
ing near their lost ones that they were 


CONCLUSION. 


125 


oblivious of the premonitory chill attend- 
ing the passage from one shore to the 
other. 

And Heroicus, whose dignity on earth 
had such bigness that his whole life had 
been made up of deeds, and not words, 
loomed like a tower of glory before the 
enlarging sight of those patient ones and 
true who are the makers of other men s 
broken fortunes and the bulwarks of hu- 
man society. 

Each one of the other angels according 
to his mission ministered to those who 
had suffered on earth for righteousness’ 
sake or in growing to be righteous or 
because they were peacemakers or pure 
in heart or merciful. 

The light of their splendid presence 
was chastened by the sorrows of mor- 
tality. The radiance of their heavenly 
beauty was softened by their twofold ex- 
perience of joy and pain. 


126 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


As the children of earth beheld these 
beings like themselves and yet so un- 
like, the poor in spirit gained a sweet 
confidence in the real meaning of the 
words, “ For the former things shall pass 
away.” Those who had mourned, be- 
holding faces transfigured with the deep 
traces of ages of joy, but full of an un- 
speakable pathos of human sorrow, said 
softly one to another, “ It is true, it is 
true, that there shall be no more pain, 
neither sorrow nor crying.” The lowly 
ones who had so long preferred others, 
and had considered themselves unworthy, 
walked along the highways of peace and 
took a long dreamless rest in the sweet 
mansions prepared for them. Those 
who had toiled for the kingdom of God 
on earth through years of discouragement 
were led at once to high places, and as 
they beheld thousands and tens of thou- 
sands of the redeemed, they sang aloud 


CONCLUSION. 


27 


in the words of David, “Thy right- 
eousness is like the great mountains,” 
“ Righteousness and judgment are the 
habitation of his throne.” With comforts 
beyond those of a mother were the mer- 
ciful comforted. 

Round about the angel of purity 
shone a white light so intense that at first 
the weary eyes of those beholding him 
were dazzled. But as they continued to 
gaze they saw their ministering angel 
looking upon the Lamb of God which 
taketh away the sins of the world. And 
straightway the larger vision renewed 
them and they mounted up on wings 
and were soon lost to sight, for they 
were lifted into the presence of the Most 
High. 

The peacemakers were given white 
robes, and before them archangels bowed 
and angels spoke softly one to another, 
saying, “ Behold the children of God.” 


128 


THE NINE BLESSINGS. 


To the persecuted was given the free- 
dom of heaven — the whole kingdom was 
theirs ; to those whose persecution had 
taken the form of slander in His name, 
and to others who had been reviled, were 
given gladness of soul and a reward so 
great that the suffering of their earthly 
life, however severe, could not be com- 
pared with the glory revealed in them. 

Thus did the redeemed learn that “in all 
their affliction he was afflicted, and the 
angel of his presence saved them : in his 
love and in his pity he redeemed them ; 
and he bare them, and carried them all 
the days of old.” 


THE END. 












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